Page 10 of Star Prince (Star #2)
Chapter Ten
It took Tee’ah a few disbelieving seconds to realize she had become separated from Ian and Muffin, swept away by the tide of miners. Instinctively she caught herself before calling out for them. Better to not broadcast the fact that she was now lost and alone. She reached for her comm, but it wasn’t in her pocket. Fortunately, her weapon was.
Within the length of several arcades, she gave up searching for her comrades. Too many people blocked her line of sight. She pushed her eyeshaders farther up the bridge of her nose. What would Ian and Muffin do? Turn back; she was certain of it. She spun on her heel and headed toward the docks. Infusing her stride with feigned confidence, she aimed to deter any possible predators, as she had on Donavan’s Blunder. But the Baréshtis mostly ignored her, too overburdened to allocate energy for curiosity.
Since fled from the palace, her own concerns had dominated her thoughts. Now they seemed incredibly trivial. It wasn’t the barrenness of the mining outpost, the indigence, the disease or proliferation of what she suspected was hallucinogenic drug-use that disturbed her most— it was the lack of hope she sensed in the hearts of these people. She had experienced hopelessness on a far smaller scale. But she had escaped it. These people hadn’t that luxury.
To her left, she noticed a tall figure keeping pace with her. Kept at a distance by a mass of bodies, a man in a dark gray hooded cloak flickered in and out of view like moonlight between trees.
Her chest tightened. His luxurious cloak was a different color than that of the Vash gentleman she had glimpsed on Grüma, but her senses prickled. He had the same look about him.
She ducked into an elevated doorway of a bustling arcade from where she could watch the street. A thin, very young woman regarded her from inside. Her blouse was see-through enough for Tee’ah to notice her breasts and nipples were plumped with ornate body art—tattoos and metallic implants. Tee’ah suspected that the scarcity of pleasure servers entitled her to charge high fees for sexual services, allowing her such vanities in addition to buying food.
Her study of the young pleasure server was cut short as Tee’ah looked back over her shoulder. The hooded man was heading toward the doorway into which she had ducked. Balling her left hand in a fist, Tee’ah made an abrupt about-face and pushed into the arcade. Her pursuer was right on her heels. She tried to run, but the crowd pressed in all around her.
“Tee’ah, stop,” a voice called. “I want to talk to you.” The voice was deep and sweetened by the educated burr of a full-blooded Vash. One that knew her name.
She made a sound of dismay and dove forward. She had barely gotten a taste of freedom, and she wasn’t about to give it up so soon.
“Tee’ah. Stop.” Her pursuer grabbed her upper arm, spinning her toward him so fast that her eyeshaders clattered to the floor. Almost instantly, they were crushed by the boots of one of the arcade’s customers.
“Let go!” Her plea was drowned by the thunder of voices.
The man tugged off his hood, revealing Vash- gold eyes and hair the color of Mistraal sunshine. “Tsk, tsk,” he said, smiling. “The entire family is talking about you.”
“Dear heaven,” she gasped. Her ex-betrothed’s younger brother’s face was painfully familiar after all the holo-recordings their families had exchanged .
Her thoughts spun wildly. Klark Vedla’s ambition and brash behavior were often frowned upon at her father’s palace, although many of the same critics admired him for being an impassioned supporter of his older brother, Ché—the prince she was supposed to have married. But never would Tee’ah have guessed that Klark was devoted enough—or smart enough—to find her in a trash-littered virtual reality arcade on a poverty-stricken asteroid at the farthest edge of settled space.
“How did you know I was here?” she demanded.
“I’ve been following you since Donavan’s Blunder.”
Klark was on Blunder? Tee’ah scoured her memory for anything she might have seen or heard that would substantiate that claim. Then she remembered the hooded man in the market on Grüma. He had been following her, indeed.
He must have guessed that she made the connection. “So, you did see me that day,” he said smugly.
She took a step backward. “What a surprise that we bumped into each other. Small galaxy, yes? My apologies for running off, but I’m needed at my ship—”
The man’s hand shot out, and his fingers clamped around her upper arm. Her heart lurched and her mouth went dry. Her free hand inched toward her pistol. “Forget it, Klark. I’m not coming with you. I’m not going home. ”
“Relax,” he said. “I’m not here to apprehend you. I’m not supposed to be here myself. So let’s keep this little meeting from the family—agreed?”
Tee’ah stared at him. “Ché didn’t send you?”
“None of this is about you, princess—as hard as that is to believe.”
She bristled. His implication that she was self-centered hit a nerve. She had struggled with that doubt since leaving home. “Then what are you doing here?”
He took her by the arm and pushed her toward the bar. “We’re two vagabonds far from home. Let us share our experiences over a drink.”
“I don’t want a drink.” She didn’t have time for one, either. Ian would be frantic by now. Or furious.
Klark waved away her protest as if she was a bug with no opinions or desires of her own, and he pulled a floating tray between them. Amazed by the absurdity of the situation, she watched him take a flask and two thimble-sized glasses from his cloak, filling them with a pink-tinged liquid. “Join me in sampling a liqueur created from one of the rarest fruits in the galaxy. It is from a planet with the briefest of summers. When the snow melts, the starberry bushes bloom.”
Tee’ah almost growled. She teetered at the precipice of losing her dreams, and Klark acted as if she were paying a social call.
He held the glasses to the light. “The flowers are extremely fragile and fall with the first flurries of autumn. The ripe berries must be picked immediately, else within days they’ll be buried under hundreds of standard feet of snow. This makes starberry liqueur the most precious of drinks. It is—”
“I know what it is!”
“Then you know it must be shared in the traditional way.” Klark dipped a finger into his glass and rubbed his glistening fingertip along her bottom lip before she was able to block his arm. Reflexively, she licked at it, tasting the tart sweetness left behind. Starberry liqueur was a rare and special treat to be shared by lovers. Or potential lovers. By anointing Tee’ah’s lips with the precious liquid, knowing that they had no past except for her intended engagement to his brother, he had all but called her a whore.
“You, Klark Vedla, are unforgivably rude.”
“And you”—he took in her fuzzy, greenish-brown hair, her dusty boots, and everything in between— “are an aberration. Ché deserves better. He deserves more.” His expression darkened, and his fingers squeezed her arm. “Far more than the subordinate role Romlijhian B’kah is inclined to give him.”
Tee’ah plunged her hand into her pocket and pushed her pistol hard against the fabric. “Let me go, Vedla, or I’ll put a crater between your pretty eyes.”
Klark’s neck muscles corded, and he sucked in a deep breath. Her legs trembled with adrenaline. She had never dreamed she was capable of such audacity.
“My apologies,” he said smoothly. “My temper will prove to be my undoing yet.” He drew the wobbling tray between them as if he expected they would now finish their drinks.
“We were never officially promised, Ché and I. I’m truly sorry if my leaving insulted him. But it’s said that blessings sometimes come of unpleasant circumstances. I agree. Because at least now I’ll never have to endure having you as a brother-in-law. Good day, Klark.” She left him standing by the floating tray.
Suddenly lightheaded, she ducked through the crowd, but the Baréshtis jostled her, slowing her progress. A floating sensation enveloped her body in a vague pleasantness at odds with her near panic. Starberry liqueur was notoriously potent, but this was ridiculous.
She pushed onward.
Her knees nearly buckled at the sound of Ian’s voice coming from near the front exit. The young pleasure server Tee’ah had seen earlier was talking to him, and he was gesturing wildly. Struggling forward, Tee’ah cried, “Ian!” above the clamor of music and voices. The woman accepted some credits from Ian, then pointed him in the right direction before she melted into the crowd.
By the time Tee’ah stumbled into the Earth-dweller’s arms, her head was spinning. She wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face against his chest, breathing in his scent. At first she clutched him out of fear, then for comfort, and finally for pleasure.
He seemed to sense the change and caught her by the shoulders, moving her back. “Thank God.” He appeared as sharply relieved as she felt. “Muffin, I’ve got her!” he called.
The big security chief joined them within seconds. Steadying herself, Tee’ah tried to work saliva into her mouth, but her tongue felt numb, like it had after that first glass of Mandarian whiskey. “Lesh—let’s get out of here.”
Disbelief and then reluctant acceptance clouded Ian’s eyes. “Ah, Tee.” His voice thickened with pity. “You can’t keep out of the bars, can you?”
Something warm unfurled within her at his genuine concern. “I wasn’t drinking.” She hiccupped and pressed her hand over her mouth. “Not intentionally.”
Muffin snorted.
“Denial, we call that on Earth,” Ian muttered.
She tried to look over her shoulder, and it knocked her off-balance. Ian wrapped his arm around her waist. She leaned on him far more than was necessary, but he didn’t seem to mind. “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not what…what it seems. Someone bought me a drink I didn’t want.”
“Yeah. And they made you drink it too.”
She wanted to howl. Salvaging her reputation meant explaining what had really happened. But if she did, she risked having to say who Klark Vedla was and how she knew him. She didn’t want Ian and the crew to view her as irresponsible; nor did she want her two lives to collide. Her ensuing indecision was almost physically painful.
They burst out of the arcade onto the street. When she saw that Klark was not waiting there, her chest ached with relief so sharp it hurt. She took his disappearance as a sign that she should keep the incident to herself. The prince was part of a life she wasn’t ready to reveal, and now it looked as if she wouldn’t yet have to. Perhaps all Klark had wanted to do was get her drunk, humiliating her in front of her employer and thereby avenge her jilting of his brother. That made sense, did it not? She tried to concentrate, but her speculation blurred in a liquor-induced haze.
“We’ll get right to work getting you sobered up,” Ian said, all business again. “Muffin, you get the tock ready, and Tee, you shower up and get something to eat. We’re launching for Grüma as soon as you’re able.”
She gave a silent groan. Wonderful, she thought dazedly. Here we go again.
They completed the return journey to Grüma with no ship malfunctions. Ian liked Tee’s reasoning that the computer was behaving itself only because it feared the consequences of further mischief. Her joking explanation was as good as any Quin had come up with so far and was one he suspected had paralleled her own outlook since she had gotten tipsy on Barésh. Aside from remaining acutely apologetic about losing his extra pair of sunglasses, she avoided all mention of the incident. Yet here he was, bringing her to a bar on her first night back on Grüma. He needed his head examined.
“Randall’s here,” Muffin said as they emerged from the woods.
Anticipation buoyed Ian. Tonight he would finally meet the man he had chased halfway across the frontier. The local merchants had told him that Randall liked to eat dinner out and socialize in the town’s pubs afterward. Ian would be waiting for him when he did.
“What is the Earth word for that…ground car?” Tee peered in fascination at the jeep Randall and his men had left parked outside a restaurant.
Ian smiled. Like the curious crowd milling around the Army-issue vehicle, sniffing at the quaint scents of fossil fuel and rubber tires, she had probably never seen a plain old everyday automobile. “It’s a jeep.”
“Ah.” She repeated the word as if savoring the sound. He had long since learned that the pixie worshipped anything to do with his home planet.
The last of Grüma’s three moons settled below the horizon, plunging the downtown strip of eateries and bars into shadow. The planet’s major city was a lonely swath of civilization cut into a continent-sized forest, a fact made more apparent as the darkness deepened. Jumbo-sized insects with veined wings and tiny bat-like creatures crisscrossed a sky glowing with trillions of stars, but stranger still were some of the revelers in the rowdy pubs.
With Push on watch back at the Sun Devil, Ian led the remainder of his crew across the street. “We’ll wait for Randall next door,” he told them. As badly as he wanted to know how the U.S. senator had learned about Barésh, Ian was determined to take things slowly. He wanted to get a feel for the man and gain his trust before he revealed his identity. Diplomacy would keep the galaxy at peace. In this modern age of interstellar politics, threats and aggression were as barbaric as Roman Empire gladiator matches. He hoped the senator understood that.
A waitress clad in an ivory pantsuit and matching knee-length hair met them at the door of the pub. “A table by the window,” Ian said, slipping a fair amount of credits into her palm. “That one,” he said, pointing to the window closest to the adjacent restaurant, from where laughter and the scent of roasting meat drifted in the night air.
The waitress shooed away a table of drunks so Ian and the crew could sit. He thought they would protest the incident, but money was plentiful on Grüma and bars abounded, so the revelers merely grumbled good-naturedly and stumbled out through the doors leading into the chilly night air.
Tee appeared utterly unaware of the attentive gazes she received from men at nearby tables, interest that waned the instant she swiped his ball cap off her head and combed her fingers through her freshly touched-up clumps of mud-green hair. Ian watched with misgiving as the whiskey-loving pixie settled her shapely and very distracting rear end on the stool next to him. Fortunately, Quin took the seat to her right. Ian forced himself to relax. She was surrounded. If she wanted to drink herself into oblivion, she was going to find it damned hard with her hands held behind her back.
His fingers flexed involuntarily as an image exploded in his mind…of Tee warm and eager in his arms, her mouth opening under his as he kissed her, holding her clasped hands at the small of her back.
A bolt of heat in his groin yanked him out of the vivid fantasy and back to reality in the smoky bar.
“... And at least the bartender seems semi-coherent, does he not? Hello ,” Tee called to him after he didn’t answer. “Ian?”
He became aware of his surroundings as if surfacing from a deep dive. Tee gave him a decidedly flirtatious grin. With her smelly hair, she reminded him of the cartoon character Pèpé Le Pew, the debonair little French skunk whose amorous intent was handicapped by his total unawareness of the effect his odor had on those around him.
“You were light years away, Ian.” She smiled and tapped two perfectly formed fingertips on his knee .
His body reacted as powerfully as if she had placed her hand directly over his…
He groaned. “I need a drink.” You don’t drink. “I do now,” he argued.
Quin stared at him. “Captain?”
Tee laughed. “He’s pretending to be that bartender on Donavan’s Blunder.”
Only he hadn’t been pretending.
“Now that’s a depressing thought,” he said aloud to Tee’s obvious delight.
“That’s exactly what he was like!”
He frowned at his folded hands as she relayed the rest of the story to Gredda, Muffin, and Quin. “You should have seen it—the bartender would have conversations with himself. Sometimes in several different voices.”
Gredda shrugged. “One would never get lonely that way.”
It wasn’t a crime to think about Tee, he supposed, as long as he took it no further. And he wouldn’t. If a wife hadn’t already been chosen for him in his absence, one would be soon. Vash Nadah marriages were alliances, not love matches—at first, anyway. The right spouse was essential for acceptance into his adopted culture.
“Here you are.” The waitress set bowls of shimmer crackers and croppers on the counter in front of them. The crew each scooped up handfuls of croppers, the crispy little question marks that took the place of peanuts in bars across the galaxy. They were spiced with something savory instead of salted, but were as addictive as potato chips. The shimmer crackers, on the other hand, were bland. Ian couldn’t understand why everyone liked them; they were nothing more than flashy junk food.
Tee dusted crumbs from her hands. “I need something to wash down these croppers. A glass of mog-melon wine will do.”
“Tee,” Quin and Ian chorused in warning.
She spread her hands. “What?”
Quin rolled his eyes. “Do the words Mandarian whiskey ring a bell?”
A faint blush stained her cheeks. “I’m not going to get drunk, for heaven’s sake. I’m on duty.” She glanced knowingly at where Randall’s group had been seated in the restaurant next door. “Am I not?”
No one argued with her, especially not Ian. His attention was drawn to the senator. Then a question dawned on him— How had she known who they were watching? Or had the look simply been a coincidence? Maybe one of the others had shown her a picture of Randall. He was being too paranoid.
The waitress took their orders. Ian kept silent as Tee requested her glass of wine. He wanted to be able to trust her—with alcohol and everything else. The longer she worked on his ship, the more involved she became in his mission. Unwittingly, for now. But she deserved to know the truth eventually .
Muffin chuckled. “Why not have the entire bottle, Tee? I’m sure the captain will carry you off to bed like he did on Blunder.”
Ian frowned at the bodyguard. “Figuratively speaking.”
“No kidding,” Tee said, imitating Ian’s accent. “Had I ended up in your bed, Earth-dweller, I would have remembered it.”
The crew burst into delighted laughter. Even Quin slammed his hands on the table, spilling croppers onto its faded holographic surface. Tee realized belatedly what she had said and looked as if she wanted to crawl under the table. Ian leaned toward her, his mouth close to her ear. The few locks of greenish hair that brushed over his lips were surprisingly silky. “I would have remembered it too.”
Her eyes widened. Immediately, she clutched her hands together, squeezing her fingers tightly atop the table. Warning bells sounded in his head. He was playing a dangerous game; she was on the run and he had…obligations. He had no business flirting with her. But a small, selfish part of him was glad to see she was unsettled by his remark.
“Well,” she murmured. “I am glad to hear that.” The glow-globe on the table illuminated the pulse under her jaw, spreading fingers of light across the fabric of her flightsuit, beneath which her breasts rose and fell with slow, even breaths. Those breaths would quicken as he moved inside her, her tender kisses turning passionate, her arms tightening around him as he brought her to an intense, drawn-out climax…
God almighty. What was he doing—torturing himself?
Fully and painfully aroused by the erotic image he had conjured, Ian jerked his attention back to the holographic tabletop. It seemed the pixie was as hazardous to him sober as she was drunk.
The waitress returned with their drinks. Then, thankfully, someone started a round of the All-Folk Chain; a galactic version of karaoke, where individual verses were made up and then sung by volunteers from the audience who came up to the stage and usually made fools of themselves.
“Now, the next port after this we’ll make is known as Donavan’s Blunder. But blunder there we’ll only do if we drink our livers asunder. ”
Ian had heard far worse. He chuckled and wrapped his hands around his mug of rapidly cooling tock, his attention on Randall’s party in the restaurant next door. They had ordered ale, a dark strong ale, instead of juice or tock, he noted happily. Alcohol would loosen the Earth group’s tongues nicely.
He kept his attention on his quarry next door, trying not to discern Tee’s voice from the rest of his crew’s, trying not to listen for the sound of her laughter or smile at her surprisingly dry, self-deprecating humor. But her scent filled his nostrils, yet another chink in his armor, the discipline that had been his strength for all his life.
Anyone who smelled like peroxide would be distracting…right?
“Your turn, Captain!” he heard the pixie call out.
Ian slid around in his seat. Push was smiling; Gredda too. But Tee was standing, one arm extended, her hand palm up and her eyes aglow with what could only be trouble.
Ian said warily, “I almost hate to ask—my turn for what?”
Tee wriggled her fingers. “The All-Folk Chain, what else?” She snatched his hand, and the feel of her warm skin sent a wave of heat up his arm. He planted his boots on the floor to keep his balance on the stool, but deftly she used his legs for leverage and tugged him to his feet.
Applause erupted. That was when Ian noticed every person in the unruly crowd had turned to face him, laughing and clapping. The singer onstage was pointing to him with a handheld voice amplifier. “Here, Earth-dweller!” he called out from the platform.
“Earth-dweller, Earth-dweller,” the audience began to chant.
“Go,” Tee cajoled, her eyes twinkling. “They like you.”
Ian looked to the rest of his crew for help. Only Quin appeared worried. The others were evidently delighted by the prospect of him making a total fool of himself. He aimed a help-me-out glare in Muffin’s direction.
The huge man was dismayingly weak in his defense. “The captain can’t sing, you know,” was all he said.
“We shall cheer for him anyway,” Tee rebutted.
“And whistle, even,” Gredda added.
Ian almost laughed at the Valkarian warrior woman’s earnest face. “You, whistle, Gredda? Tempting, but forget it. We’re here to size up our competition, not to provide the evening’s entertainment.” He tried to sit down but Tee held fast to his hand.
“Earth-dweller, Earth-dweller...”
Ian gave the cheering crowd a Queen-Elizabeth wave. “In your dreams,” he said in English.
Tee shook her head. “You are a trader, yes? Then you must think of this as an opportunity, not an ordeal. Trade is a matter of trust,’” she recited. “‘With trust comes reciprocation, and with reciprocation, profit.’”
He gaped at her. She had quoted directly from the Treatise of Trade, the holiest document of the Vash Nadah. Ian recognized the passage only because he had spent so much of the past seven years memorizing the ponderous and ancient teachings. The Vash Nadah peppered their conversations with such quotes, finding phrases to fit every situation. But a merchant-class woman using excerpts in everyday conversation? He wouldn’t have expected it.
“You came here to trade, yes?” she went on. “If you sing, they will like you. If the other traders like you, they will buy from you, no matter where you’re from.”
“Earth-dweller, Earth-dweller,” the chants continued.
“And if they buy your goods,” she added with a partner-in-crime wink, “then perhaps you’ll raise my salary.”
He chuckled as he caught Senator Randall glancing over from the restaurant next door. “I just might do that.” Her ploy was ingenious in ways she couldn’t imagine. Participating in this silly bar game would guarantee anonymity for his initial meeting with the man. Who’d ever expect to find the disputed heir to the galaxy in the frontier, singing the Chain in a bar filled with drunken black-marketeers?
He gave a longsuffering sigh. “All right, Miss Tee. A captain’s got to do what a captain’s got to do, but”—he brought his mouth to her ear— “don’t think you won’t pay for this later.”
Leaving her thoroughly flustered, he walked to the stage and snatched the microphone from the man who’d preceded him. With the slim high-tech rod anchored in his hand, he stared out at the audience—shadowy, unfamiliar faces all, but for his crew standing in the left rear of the bar. “ All you do is continue more or less from where the last participant left off ,” he recalled Gredda once telling him.
“Okay,” he said into the mike.
At that single English word, the crowd went wild, stomping and cheering, and he tried to forget that he couldn’t sing. Encouraged by their enthusiasm and by the fact that they were drunk and he was sober, Ian recalled the lyrics of a verse he had heard earlier and altered them to suit the idea that popped into his head. Using the tapping of his boot on the wooden floor for rhythm, he belted out a song that came out sounding more far more like old Earth rap than folksy.
“Donavan’s Blunder is the place to come, if to trade you’re more than willing. But keep your pilots away from whiskey or their minds you will be killing. ”
Tee tried to appear affronted, but her eyes sparkled as he floundered through another verse. Then, unexpectedly, three men walked into the pub— Randall and his cronies.
Ian swore. Instead of being able to coolly observe the men from the shadows until he was ready to introduce himself, he was standing front-and-center on a stage in the middle of the bar.
Beautiful.
Hawk-faced, silver-haired, tall and blue-eyed, U.S. Senator Charlie Randall drew the attention of every patron in the bar. The conversation ebbed as everyone gave him a curious glance. But no one on Grüma remained surprised for long, and the noise resumed immediately.
“You must think of this as an opportunity, not an ordeal.” Tee’s words echoed inside him. Yeah. He ought to turn the tables on Randall, get him onstage while he returned to his seat. Then he would be able to see how the senator acted under pressure. Rom B’kah often said that there was nothing like a little stress to bring out an individual’s true colors.
An oddly appropriate song sprang into Ian’s mind. This time he sang in English.
“Yankee Doodle went to Grüma, A-riding on a pony. Tucked some coffee in his jeans and called it macaroni. ”
Randall swung his silver-haired head in Ian’s direction. Narrowing his eyes, he regarded Ian with a stare that would have intimidated anyone not already used to similar looks from powerful men. He had gotten more than a few from the more intrigue-prone and distrustful Vash Nadah royals, so Ian didn’t flinch.
“Yankee Doodle keep it up,
Yankee Doodle dandy.
You’re the new Earth-dweller on the block
And feet-first in my territory. ”
Okay, so the rhyme sucked eggs, but his goal was to put Randall on the spot, not win a talent contest. Ian grinned and aimed the mike at Randall. The crowd roared and again began to chant, “Earth-dweller, Earth-dweller.”
The senator glanced around helplessly. His followers visibly recoiled. Then a merchant at a nearby table tugged impatiently on Randall’s sleeve, gesturing to the stage. Another gave him a nudge.
Shoulders sagging with the inevitability of it all, the senator marched to the front of the bar. His blue eyes were more penetrating in person than they were on television. “You’re American,” he said, snatching the mike from Ian’s hand.
“Yep.”
“You’re also a pain in the ass. You owe me a drink after this, young man.”
Ian shrugged then returned to his table where his cheering crew waited.
“You can’t sing,” Tee said.
“I never said I could.”
“Ah, but you were wonderful!”
With her face flushed with happiness, her beauty radiating from deep within, she came across as utterly sweet and unspoiled…and more out of place in the frontier than ever. He fought the impulsive urge to wrap his arm around her waist and draw her close, not only to shield her from the undisciplined mob, but to feel her warm and soft against him. Luckily, Randall’s singing brought him back from th e edge of doing something entirely inappropriate.
The senator had a reasonable grasp of Basic, and the crowd guffawed good-naturedly at his mangled version of a common jingle. When he relinquished the stage to the next participant, with his two companions in tow, he strode to where Ian stood. “Where’s my drink, kid?”
Ian tossed Quin some credits and dispatched the man for a round of ale. A few extra chairs were pulled up and the entire group sat together.
Ian stuck out his hand. “Stone,” was all he said. His hair was longer than he usually wore it and he purposefully sported a few days’ worth of stubble. He doubted the senator would recognize him.
“Senator Charlie Randall,” the man said as they shook hands.
“A U.S. senator in this godforsaken place? What brings you here?”
“Fact-finding,” he replied in English to Ian’s Basic. He leaned over the table and lowered his voice. “I’ve seen things that would curl your hair.”
Barésh. “Yeah? Like what?”
Smugly, the man spread his suntanned hands on the table. In an open-necked powder-blue polo shirt, the prominent American senator looked more likely to play a few rounds of golf than turn the balance of the galaxy on its ear. “All isn’t as it seems in the Vash Empire,” he said cryptically. Then he smiled, drawing out the moment, enjoying Ian’s patent interest. “That is what I was told, now I’ve seen it for myself. Let’s just say I intend to bring home with me a little enlightenment regarding that fact.”
Like hell you will . Ian was certain Rom B’kah knew nothing of Barésh. He would never stand for such conditions. On the other hand, if places like Barésh existed without Rom’s knowledge, it in essence proved Randall’s point that the Federation didn’t care about the frontier. Until Ian could show that the Vash were committed to changing what was wrong, he had to keep Randall from taking the news home. Just how he was going to do that he had yet to figure out. But he would. Without Rom’s help. This was his chance to show that he could take a delicate and potentially disastrous situation and turn it around.
“Sounds intriguing,” Ian said casually. “Tell me more.”
“Over our drinks.” Randall waved a hand at his companions. “This here’s Mike Gruber, assistant secretary of commerce. And Bud Lucarelli and Tom Dowdy, secret service.”
Ian introduced Gredda, Muffin, and Tee, pointedly switching the language from English to Basic, allowing his crew to participate in the conversation. There was another round of handshaking when Quin returned to the table with a small cask of ale and mugs. Then the two groups made Smalltalk.
Ian ignored the glass of ale Quin placed in front of him. Tee, he noticed, did the same. In fact, her original flute of mog-melon wine was still two-thirds full. Maybe the pixie was learning, after all .
“How long have you been out here, Stone?” Randall asked.
“A while. I sell Earth products. Business is good.”
“Excellent. I’d like to see more young people seeking their fortunes in the frontier. We’re the home team out here, you know. Earth.” He wrinkled his nose at Tee. “What’s that you’re drinking, young lady? It smells like hard-boiled eggs.”
The senator’s thick accent made his words tough to understand, but everyone in Ian’s party knew to what he had referred. Quin choked back a laugh, while Muffin tried hard not to smile. Tee shot them a warning glare, then curved both hands around her glass of wine. “It’s only mog-melon wine. Perhaps the odor is coming from that group over there,” she suggested.
The senator and his cohorts glanced at the particularly grubby collection of traders sitting behind them, and Ian was pleased to see them nod. Good. He didn’t want any of his crew arousing suspicions.
But Randall wasn’t done scrutinizing Tee. He refocused on her, his blue eyes intense and searching. She shrank back before appearing to catch herself. “Are you a Vash Nadah?” he asked warily.
“Her, Vash ?” Ian chuckled. “She’s a space drifter, through and through.” He said it to protect Tee, though he was far from convinced it was the truth.
“Yes. That’s me. Scum of the galaxy.” To Ian’s dismay, Tee lifted her flute to her lips and downed the contents in two deep swallows .
Quin chimed in. “You should have seen her the day we hired her. Had enough Mandarian whiskey in her blood to pickle a hydro-farm of Danjo shoe-beets.”
Eyes watering, Tee clasped her hands tightly atop the table and nodded. “More likely two hydro-farms.”
Randall laughed and relaxed in his chair. “That certainly doesn’t sound like your typical Vash. I’ve never seen a more self-righteous, gloom-and-doom spouting people in all my life.”
Tee’s knuckles turned white.
Ian said tightly, “For someone who’s spent a career fighting against the erosion of civil rights, don’t you think that’s a mighty big generalization?” Immediately he felt Tee’s eyes on him, and he wanted to kick himself for jumping in to defend the Vash when he was supposed to be making friends with Randall.
The senator appeared unrepentant. “There are always exceptions. But overall I don’t trust them. They want the frontier under their thumb. But there’s a brighter future for Earth if we remain independent of that control. We have more than enough resources to survive. We don’t need Vash rule.” His face came alive with passion. “I envision a future where the frontier thrives independently of the Vash Federation.”
“What about that war the galaxy almost didn’t survive ten thousand years ago? ”
“Eleven,” Tee corrected absently.
“Right,” Ian said, almost smiling. “Eleven.” He had wanted to hide his expert grasp of galactic history, and being corrected by a ragged-looking space drifter fed perfectly into his ploy. “Wasn’t that brought about because all the worlds and systems broke into warring factions? A few got their hands on some bad-ass weaponry and”—Ian mimicked the sound of an explosion— “it was almost ‘game over’ for civilization. I don’t particularly like the idea of heading down that road again, do you? Not after everything’s been stable for so long.”
He realized that Tee was watching him in shock. He gave her a quick smile to reassure her. What was wrong? Didn’t she agree with him? Swallowing hard, she lowered her eyes to her tightly clenched hands.
“There must be a way we can stay part of the Federation for protection and still hang onto our identity as a planet.” Ian was operating without a script now. Rom hadn’t cleared him to negotiate; the king of the galaxy hadn’t even cleared him to talk to Randall. But he wouldn’t have chosen Ian as his successor if he didn’t believe he could think creatively and independently.
“Romlijhian B’kah chose his stepson as the next king,” he said to Randall. “Talk about having friends in high places… Don’t you think it’d be better to be part of the Federation than opposed to it?”
“There’s more to it than just influence—or the lack thereof,” the senator argued. “The Vash don’t view the frontier—or us—as they do the central area of their empire. We’re beneath their regard.” The senator glanced at Tee, as if he were still unsure of her. Then he lowered his voice. “I have proof. I’ve seen the darker side, Stone—poverty, disease, and apathy. My associate took me to Sorak Seven, Lanat, Barésh.”
Ian glanced up sharply. Muffin frowned. Randall had an associate? Whom was he working with?
“Those worlds are nothing more to the Vash than distant slave pits,” Randall continued. “I saw primitive medical care, substandard housing, hungry and overworked populations. The galaxy isn’t the Shangri-La they claim it is,” he said. “Earth needs to know that.”
Yeah, Ian thought grimly, so do the Vash .
“What’s happened to those planets could happen to us,” Randall concluded, “unless we assert ourselves.”
Ian stiffened. He was within a hair’s-breadth of telling Randall who he was, right here, right now, so they could roll up their sleeves and hash out possible solutions instead of chatting over glasses of ale. But instinct told him to proceed with caution.
“What kind of proof do you have?”
Randall called up a schedule on his wrist-gauntlet computer. “My ship’s docked by the old fortress in the hills. I’ll be reviewing the information I’ve gathered over the next several weeks. Stop by for a beer before I leave for Washington.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that.” In the meantime, Ian was going to find out who Randall’s associate was. That person was obviously behind the senator’s discovery of the inexcusably ignored fringe worlds—and Ian needed to know his or her intent.
Randall lifted his mug and tipped another swig of ale into his mouth. “Rotten stuff,” he said, slamming his mug down. “No wonder our beer’s taking the galaxy by storm.” He stood, grabbing his jacket, and gave Ian a friendly salute before heading with his men outside to his jeep.
Gredda glared after him. Quin blew a stream of air out his mouth, while Muffin gazed thoughtfully at his drink. Tee hiccupped softly.
“Excuse me,” she said, patting her chest.
Ian eyed Tee’s empty glass and groaned. He was dealing with a powerful U.S. senator who believed Earth was better off opposing a Federation that had maintained peace for eleven thousand years. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the man was spreading the word while playing tourist on a trip arranged by a mysterious partner. Convincing Randall that he was better off working with the Vash rather than against them was going to be one hell of a job. Though at the moment, Ian thought wryly, his greatest challenge lay in escorting his pilot out of the bar and back to the ship before she was tempted to order another drink.